Sunday, January 4, 2015

Life is always interesting, and interesting usually means busy. In early fall, we decided to aceelerate some plans we had made to move from spring 2015 to right away, and by the end of October, the clan was in a new residence. It's taken some time to adjust, and we are still settling in, but on the whole, the new place is working out well and should be a good fit far into the future.

One significant benefit of the move is an upgrade in my office space, both for work and for genealogy. I'm not in the basement or wedged into a room the size of a large walk-in closet (my final office space at the old house), but have a proper room with enough space for discreet work and genealogy spaces. It will be nice once I get it organized- the work space got situated immediately, the genealogy space has taken a little longer, but it is getting there.

Last year around this time, I posted a list of "Genealogical Resolutions". Let's see how I did, and what I might do better.

First, I resolved to blog twice a month, more or less.

-I did OK on this one through March, then my production fell off a cliff. For 2015, my variation on this is a bit more modest - at least one blog post a month.

Second, I resolved to get my sources fixed and my database moved into Legacy Family Tree 8.

-I did manage to fix some sources, but, this resolution has been made somewhat moot by two factors. First, I've switched from Legacy to RootsMagic, as I think RootsMagic is closer to true multi-platform portability than is Legacy, and otherwise the two programs are comparable in terms of features and usability. I also have some concerns about the Microsoft Access database underlying Legacy, so, for as good a program it has been, for now, the choice is RootsMagic. The second factor is that with the change to a new software platform, I'm starting a new filing/organizational system and am basically hitting the reset button on my genealogy - fresh database, proper citations and source analysis. This covers my third resolution from last year as well - the use of Clooz or Evidentia to analyze source documents.

My fourth resolution from last year was get my workspce organized. As described above, this is a work in process.

My fifth resolution from last year was to photograph and transcribe a few local cemeteries. This didn't happen, and probably won't in 2015 - I know my limitations in terms of time, and this just doesn't fit in.

Lastly, I made a number of resolutions concerning genealogical DNA testing. Those are all still in play, as I made little progress on them.